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1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment

{{short description|Union army regiment during the American Civil War}}

{{infobox military unit

| unit_name = 1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment

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| dates = August 4, 1862 – December 13, 1864

| country = United States

| allegiance = Union

| branch = Infantry

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| equipment = Austrian and Prussian musketsMoore, Frank. The Rebellion Record, v. 6, (G.P. Putnam, 1863), pp. 52-54

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| battles = American Civil War

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| disbanded = December 13, 1864

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The 1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was the first black regiment organized in a northern state to see combat during the Civil War. At the Battle of Poison Spring, wounded and surrendering soldiers from the regiment were massacred. As a result, the regiment lost nearly half its number and suffered the highest losses of any Kansas regiment during the war.{{Cite book |last=Urwin |first=Gregory J. W. |author-link=Gregory J. W. Urwin |editor-last1=Bailey |editor-first1=Anne J. |editor-last2=Sutherland |editor-first2=Daniel E. |editor-link2=Daniel E. Sutherland |chapter="We Cannot Treat Negroes ... as Prisoners of War": Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in Civil War Arkansas |title=Civil War Arkansas: Beyond Battles and Leaders |date=2000 |publisher=University of Arkansas Press |location=Fayetteville, Arkansas |isbn=1-55728-565-9 |pages=214–216}}

Service overview

The 1st Kansas Colored Infantry was organized by Senator James Henry Lane at Fort Scott, Kansas and mustered in as a battalion of six companies on January 13, 1863 for three years.{{Cite news|url=https://www.joplinglobe.com/news/local_news/historian-spotlights-the-story-of-the-st-kansas-colored-infantry/article_19ad1aa7-32d6-5900-96a3-592052115b9f.html|title=Historian spotlights the story of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry in Civil War series|last=Barker|first=Kimberly|work=Joplin Globe|access-date=2018-11-08|language=en}} Four additional companies were recruited and mustered in between January 13 and May 2, 1863. It mustered in under the command of Colonel James Monroe Williams.

Image:JamesMonroeWilliams.jpg, Colonel of 1st Kansas Colored Infantry]]

The regiment was recruited without federal authorization and against the wishes of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. James H. Lane, recruiting commissioner for Kansan territory north of the Kansas River, on August 4, 1862, authorized raising the regiment. Recruiting officials enlisted black men across eastern Kansas, most of whom were formerly enslaved in Missouri. Some were emancipated, and many had escaped to freedom. It was the first African-American regiment to see combat during the Civil War, in the skirmish at Island Mound, in Bates County, Missouri, in October 1862. The regiment's Company D had three black officers, William D. Matthews and his two lieutenants, Henry Copeland and Patrick Minor, who were not allowed commissions as officers when the regiment was formally mustered into the Union army.

The regiment was attached to Department of Kansas to June 1863.

Maj. Gen. James G. Blunt, commander of the Union forces at the Battle of Honey Springs, was particularly impressed by the performance of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry at that engagement. They repulsed a Confederate charge, inflicting many casualties, and, after Colonel Williams was badly wounded, continued to fight and made an orderly withdrawal. Afterwards, he wrote: "I never saw such fighting as was done by the Negro regiment....The question that negroes will fight is settled; besides they make better soldiers in every respect than any troops I have ever had under my command."[http://americancivilwar.com/statepic/ok/ok007.html Honey Springs, Elk Creek, Shaw's Inn - Civil War Oklahoma American Civil War July 17, 1863."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141112065918/http://americancivilwar.com/statepic/ok/ok007.html |date=November 12, 2014 }} Retrieved August 25, 1863.

The 1st Kansas Colored Infantry ceased to exist on December 13, 1864, when it became a U.S. Army unit. Its designation was changed to the 79th Regiment Infantry U.S. Colored Troops.[https://www.nps.gov/fosc/learn/historyculture/firsttoserve.htm "First to Serve."] National Park Service. Fort Scott National Historic Site." Retrieved August 30, 2014.{{Cite book|last=Fox|first=William Freeman|url=https://archive.org/details/regimentallosses00infoxw|title=Regimental losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865 : a treatise on the extent and nature of the mortuary losses in the Union regiments, with full and exhaustive statistics compiled from the official records on file in the state military bureaus and at Washington|date=1889|publisher=Albany, N.Y. : Albany Publishing Co.|others=Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection|pages=53|chapter=VI. THE COLORED TROOPS — HISTORY OF THEIR ORGANIZATION — THEIR LOSSES IN BATTLE AND BY DISEASE.|quote=... in August, 1862, recruiting for a colored regiment was commenced in Kansas, and over 600 men were soon mustered in. The regiment, however, was not mustered into the United States service until January 13, 1863. It was then designated the First Kansas Colored Volunteers, but its name was changed, in December, 1864, to the 79th United States Colored Infantry.}} Also attached to the regiment at some point was Armstrong's Battery Light Artillery, a unit for which few details are known.

In popular culture

In 2011, quilt artist and educator Marla Jackson worked with junior high students in Lawrence, Kansas to produce a collaborative and commemorative quilt on the 1st Kansas Infantry.{{Cite web|title = The First Colored Troops of Kansas {{!}} Exhibitions {{!}} Spencer Museum of Art|url = http://www.spencerart.ku.edu/exhibitions/colored-troops-kansas.shtml|website = www.spencerart.ku.edu| date=21 July 2011 |access-date = 2016-01-25|archive-date = 2015-12-20|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151220161800/http://www.spencerart.ku.edu/exhibitions/colored-troops-kansas.shtml|url-status = live}} The quilt, along with several others by Jackson that evoked similar themes, was displayed at the Spencer Museum of Art.

See also

{{portal|American Civil War|Kansas}}

Notes

{{reflist}}

References

  • Dyer, Frederick H. A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion (Des Moines, IA: Dyer Pub. Co.), 1908.
  • Official Military History of Kansas Regiments During the War for the Suppression of the Great Rebellion (Leavenworth: W. S. Burke), 1870.
  • Spurgeon, Ian Michael. Soldiers in the Army of Freedom: The 1st Kansas Colored, the Civil War's First African American Combat Unit (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press), 2014.

;Attribution

  • {{CWR}}

External links

  • [https://www.nps.gov/fosc/learn/historyculture/firsttoserve.htm History of the 1st Kansas Infantry (Colored) by the Fort Scott National Park Service staff]
  • [http://www.kshs.org/portraits/first_kansas.htm History of the 1st Kansas Infantry (Colored) by the Kansas State Historical Society staff]
  • [https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UUS0079RI02C/ 79th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry -- New Organization (1st Regiment, Kansas Colored Infantry)] The National Park Service
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20110722040102/http://www.kansasguardmuseum.org/dispunit.php?id=8 History of the 1st Kansas Infantry (Colored) by the Museum of the Kansas National Guard]
  • [http://www.kshs.org/p/cool-things-first-kansas-colored-infantry-flag/10125# Cool Things - First Kansas Colored Infantry Flag, Kansas Historical Society]
  • [http://www.kshs.org/p/online-exhibits-keep-the-flag-to-the-front-part-4/10654 Online Exhibits - Keep the Flag to the Front, "The Colored Soldiers," Kansas Historical Society]
  • [https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/first-kansas-colored-infantry-1862-1865/ 1st Kansas Colored Infantry (1862-1865) by Semhar Negassa]

{{Kansas in the Civil War}}

Category:Military units and formations established in 1862

Category:Military units and formations disestablished in 1864

Category:Units and formations of the Union army from Kansas

Kansas Infantry, 001

Category:1862 establishments in Kansas

Category:Artillery units and formations of the American Civil War